Week 5 – Group 4 Tools – Animations & Simulations / Online Concept Mapping / Museum Box  

For this group of tools I decided to focus on the 3 that interested me the most. Firstly online concept mapping caught my eye as I have worked with the bubblus program online for previous subjects I have studied. As I read further down the list I came to MUSEUM BOX and the first line I read was “If you could put a number of items into a box that described your life, what would you include?” this made me think about what is important to me at this very point in time.

Animations & Simulations

I am mainly going to try and address simulations this is an area that I think would have advantaged my generation when we were students. I was a kinaesthetic learner therefore I had to have things to play with and watch, and join and experiment with. Through simulations I think that students would remain engaged in a lesson if they were able to experiment and see the types of outcomes that may occur if certain factors are changed or taken away from a situation. Ideally in a simulation program this would be the case, if a different process was followed then maybe there will be a different outcome even though this may not be the correct outcome this will also engage students to engage in higher order thinking to achieve the desired outcome for the task. Through simulations it allows students to interact with ICT technologies. This would be the most efficient way to deal with the regulations that guide how we teach such subjects and topics in a classroom.

The flip side is that students are not able to engage and use all of their senses to experience the real process that is being simulated for them with the getting your hands dirty part of a task.

Online Concept Mapping

Through concept mapping all students are able to engage in the lesson and add their thoughts to a concept map without being judged because of the decision that they have made or what they have written on the board. A concept map allows all member of a class to piece together their ideas and assumptions. As the teacher you can act as a sounding board and filter the information that is being added on a daily basis. Through interaction by all students teachers are allowing students to extend their knowledge whilst they are reassuring themselves of any assumptions and agreed differences that may occur within the concept map.

Museum Box

I love the idea of a box with images on each side and a roll of the box could create a whole new context for a class discussion. The boundaries are near limitless. This could be used in all areas of learning. It would help to engage students that are not as focused as you would  like them to be. All you would need to do is add pictures that may spark an interest in their own thought process. This is a strategy that would benefit all students in a class. For lower level students it would help to engage them with prompts that may assist them in completing a task. For the higher end of the class it could be the task that encourages them to think outside the box, and begin to higher order think about things that may be presented to them in the museum box. As a teacher you could have a wide variety of questions that would help students to be creative with their thoughts and understanding processes.